1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of wireless communication. More specifically, the present invention relates to the problem of concurrent wireless communication with multiple communication partners of different wireless communication protocols.
2. Background Information
Advances in microprocessor and communication technology have led to the increase in popularity of wireless communication. Once confined to the privileged, wireless voice communication has become affordable and available to the masses. Today, various efforts are under way to apply wireless communication to replace attachment cables used for attaching peripheral devices, such as printers, scanners and the like, as well as networking cables used for connecting clients, servers and the like. A leading candidate to accomplish the former is commonly known to those skilled in the art as the Bluetooth technology or Bluetooth protocol. Examples of technology to accomplish the later include the different variants of the IEEE 802.11 Standard published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, 802.11 FH, 802.11 D, 802.11 High Data Rate, as well as Home RF.
A need has emerged in a number of applications that it is desirable for a device to be able to operate “concurrently” in multiple wireless protocols. One such application is having a notebook computer being able to communicate with peripheral devices such as a phone, a printer, a scanner and the like, in accordance with the Bluetooth protocol; and with other computing devices, such as other peer computers or servers, communication devices, such as modems or adapters, and networking devices, such as gateways, routers, switches and the like, in accordance with one of the 802.11 protocols or Home RF.
However, the need cannot be met by simply providing the device with multiple transmitters, one for each protocol. The reason is because if multiple ones of these transmitters were to transmit at the same time, the transmitters would interfere with each other. This would result in corruption and/or loss of data, as well as degradation in performance.
As will be described in more detail below, the present invention substantially addresses this need in a very efficient and low cost manner. This and other advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent from the description to follow.